Not Florence, But a Flashback

Since Mage asked and others may have missed this post from so long ago...this is the story of when my house flooded. 

And She Turns

Florence was met with great fanfare in our neighborhood and we did not ignore that. We moved the benches from the dock where the tides have been very high for days.

We tied the plastic benches to the deck supports and cleared the deck of all the other patio furniture... which may or may not get moved back out in the coming weeks.

Hubby has been working hard in the humidity to get the widowmaker that finally came down across the path to the dock cut into firewood for this winter even though cozy wood fires seem such a long way away.

I froze several gallon jugs of water and put them in the freezer in the event we lose electricity.  I also inventoried the small freezer and we have been trying to eat as much of that as we can.  While families are hungry in this country we have an embarrassing abundance of food tucked away.

Now we see that the storm is moving south of us. We will just get some bands of heavy rains. Our soils are very wet and we may lose a tree or two, but it looks like we dodged the bullet on this one.

Stay safe, ya'll!

Superfluous or Tabor Who?

Yes, I have been absent. No, not on travel. I have been lying in bed and coughing my head off for weeks. I did not get a cold, or flu...no fever, joint aches, sinus problems. I had loss of appetite, but seemed to be eating well!  No one seems to know (or care?) what is making me cough and cough. Finally, it did morph into a virus thing in the lungs and I sounded as if I had been smoking my whole life. I could not get in to see my doctor, but saw a backup and got some meds to ease symptoms. Needless to write, I was not getting much sleep. Then a few days ago it all started to heal maybe due to the meds and helping me sleep regularly and soundly. Very slowly, I might add, the symptoms diminished.

Yes, I have an appointment with an ENT specialist, but I am not optimistic or even pessimistic that he will find a solution even if he does cram some camera object down my throat.  I am just glad to be up and walking around and on the mend.  Going shopping today for food and supplies in the event we lose electricity with this impending storm.

Anyway...just if you missed me.  If you did not, that is OK also.  I am not the center of my own attention, even.

I did a photo painting this morning for the first time in days...taken back in mid-August.

Disjointed

My life has become disjointed.  It seems to be full of disparate themes these days that make me feel just a bit off kilter.

I saw Mama Mia Part II recently and various ABBA songs keep running through my head at odd times of the day. I like ABBA so there could be worse songs drilling a beat in my brain.  Is it a premonition that the phrases "take a chance on me" and "SOS" are the constants?

I cut myself (again) while chopping garden veggies the other day and now two tips of my fingers are sore when I use the keyboard to type. I try to keep the knives sharpened, but they are getting old.

I am reading "The Crooked Little Road to Semi-Ever Happiness." It is a well-written story, but the kind of story that haunts you with sadness as you finish each chapter.

I have mixed a weed-killer formula of vinegar, Epsom salts and dish soap to kill my weeds while protecting the river. I spray this along paths and where crabgrass has grown over the drains or into the bricks. It took me all day to find where I had left the large bag of salts. I looked in the garage, the laundry room and even under the bathroom sink until eventually finding the bag under the kitchen sink of all places!

I washed all the windows on the outside with one of those Windex spraying tools resulting in a sore shoulder and stiff neck.  It also helped me see more clearly how the inside of the windows is covered in a pale film of dirt. I guess I have to start on those next and do the "wash on-wash off" Karate dance.  The whole time I did this I kept thinking of rain against the windows of friends in Hawaii as the hurricane just missed them.

We lost our large fig tree and now the new ones we planted a few years ago are just starting to come into figs.  Hubby is eating most of them as snacks when he mows the lawn so there will not be much of a harvest this year. They are Celeste figs and seem to taste better than the other ones we had.

John McCain lost his battle this week and I am struggling with the sadness of losing his balanced and fair voice in the Congress. He was one of the few that admitted he made mistakes. The Republicans are now free to fully lose their way.

The DNC, on the other hand, have changed their rules in dealing with Superdelegates in order to appeal to Millennials.    Time will tell.

I have tried to be more regular with my exercise (elliptical and free weights) which results in my Fitbit telling me I am not meeting the 10,000 steps each day.  Nothing more annoying than wiping the sweat from your brow and your Fitbit asking if you are up for a stroll!  I wonder if I will be alive when this technology really tells us how we are doing.

And perhaps the most annoying is that it is 2:59 in the morning as I write this.  A full moon usually means insomnia for me.  I  do not have to be anywhere today, so may take a nap after lunch.  Here is hoping I get back on track sooner rather than later.  Maybe some meditation and breathing exercises?

The Quiet Evenings Return

It is mid-August and the osprey have left their nest which sits so empty and quiet on the water. The mother osprey no longer scolds me when I cross the dock. I can see the family of three some evenings teaching their single offspring how to soar above the river and then dip their talons across the mirrored surface before surging up into the blue once again and perching on an overhanging snag. Soon they will be heading south for the winter.

The wren nest is also empty as they must have learned to fly while we were visiting in the city. Grandchildren are back home wrapping up the last few weeks of summer camp. Our company have all finished with their vacations and are now back home across the Pacific ocean. The house is now quiet of much activity and busy meal preparation. Children's games and toys are slowly being returned to their cupboards, sheets are washed. We have some leftovers to finish eating and that leaves me time to wander to the water's edge for sunsets once again at days end as the sun moves around into a center stage position. We can even catch a sunset down in the village when it crosses the bridge.

Sighing with gratitude.

Just Pondering the Near Time Ahead

It has been a long three weeks of August. The first week I had company, caught a cold, and got the oldest grandson for a few days. The second week I got the youngest grandson who kept us busy with wanting to do something most of the day including kayaking and a 10 mile bike  ride. Although, I will admit we binge-watched "Merlin" on Netflix and he did make it through two seasons and loved it. The characters were uplifting and real. I always like how Britain uses all ages in its series. 

That week was followed by three days with granddaughter  at our house where we played with photography a bit (she says she loves photography but not sure she loves the patience and details required. )  I also supervised her  exercises to get ready for Cheer leading  Camp.  She did 250 jumping jacks and high knee runs interrupted by push-ups for another count of  250.  I got  tired just counting!  She has a really lovely well-muscled body.   We also binge watched the new season of  "Anne With an  E...Anne of  Green Gables."  That is so  well done that she was completely enthralled  and  truly upset when the character, Cole, left. Avon Lea..and we left home had to head up here.  (Her parents have Netflix, so she can watch the ending.)  Then we drove her back home to here in the suburbs outside  the city.  We are being chauffeurs  in taking her to cheer leading  sessions the rest of this week while  also sitting the  oldest grandson  who now has a  little  cold.  The busy life of a  family!

We will  celebrate a birthday of the grand-girl and our  48th wedding anniversary on Thursday evening, and then, hopefully, head home on Friday evening after doing some more chauffeuring during the  day.

It will  be a strange time in the coming week with no child obligations  and only gardening  and housecleaning to do.   It is always like a mini-childless time similar to when my children  headed  off to college and I had  only a job to distract and fill  my days followed by quiet evenings  and  an even  quieter dinner.  Like everything in this world it requires some adjustment.  It just seems in  retirement you have more  time to ponder over the  adjustments being made and less to  distract you.  It seems to bring a magnifying glass  to the  ever creeping end of times ahead.

I am not saying this with huge sadness, but more a realistic view as to how  to adjust so  these final years are more carefully planned.

Kayak Lessons

We have the youngest of the grands for a week and I become somewhat bipolar in making sure they have something fun with which to build a memory and also making sure they are left alone to just vegetate as their summer weeks are usually filled with travel and camps and heavy scheduled time. Yesterday was Kayak lesson day which put Grandpa in his sweet spot. I guess the photographer also enjoyed this!

He is a bit of a water bug, so not afraid to get out on the river.

He practiced strokes while we held the kayak by rope. Then we got into the canoe and he stroked around us while we held on to the rope, then we let him go.

We paddled just around the point and found our selected beach was a bit gone at high tide.  It was still walkable and they got out to rest for a while.

I stayed in the canoe and took photos of the late summer fruited trees against the setting sunlight.

And I watched the kayak bob on the colored water.

The older male taught the younger male how to cast and as luck would have it we got a nice 8-inch perch to add to our crab dinner that night!

It is always a miracle when everything goes perfectly!